According to conventional tumor biopsy techniques, a physician punctures a patient's skin with a sampling device (e.g., a needle) and advances the needle toward a subject organ capsule. The physician advances the device along a planned trajectory while viewing images of the advancing device and the surrounding anatomic structures. As specified by the planned trajectory, the device punctures the organ capsule and enters the tissue of a tumor residing therein. A sample of the tumor is obtained and the device is retracted from the patient through the original puncture location.
A single puncture through skin and the organ capsule is desired to minimize risk of bleeding or complication. This approach limits the areas of the tumor which may be sampled, subjecting the resulting tissue biopsy samples to sampling error. Moreover, in the case of a heterogeneous tumor, the acquired tissue samples may fail to reflect the complete or primary genetic composition of the tumor, which may adversely affect the efficacy of any treatment which is prescribed based on the tissue samples.